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With (Regards of the Author. 



REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE 



— ON-^ 



MEDICAL TOPOGRAPHY, METEOROLOGY, 
ENDEMICS AND EPIDEMICS, 



MADE TO THE 



MEDICAL SOCIETY OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 



— AT THE- 



ANNUAL SESSION, HELD AT SAN FEANCISCO, IN APEIL, 1883 
By M. M. CHIPMAN, M. D., 

of san francisco, chairman of committee. 



Foresi Preservation and Timber Gulfivafion. 

(Extracted from the Volume of Transactions of the Society .) 






SAN FRANCISCO: 

WiNTERBURN & Co., PRINTERS AND ElECTROTYPERS, ' 417 ClAY StrEET, 

1883. 



r^ 0" 



i4< 



REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE 



-ON— 



MEDICAL TOPOGRAPHY, METEOROLOGY, 
ENDEMICS AND EPIDEMICS, 



MADE TO THE 

MEDICAL SOCIETY OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, 

— AT THE — 



ANNUAL SESSION, HELD AT SAN FRANCISCO, IN APRIL, 1883 

By M. M. CHIPMAN, M. D., 

i 

OF SAN FRANCISCO, CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEE. 



Forest Preservation and Timber Cultivation. 

(Extracted from the Volume of Transactions of the Society.) 






SAN FRANCISCO: 

WlNTERBORN & Co., PRINTERS AND ELECTROXyPERS, 417 ClVY StrEET, 

1883. 



3 



XiA-o'-' 



i« 



■-J ^ 



^ 3 -7 1 £7 



REPORT OF COMMITTEE 

— ON — 

MEDICAL TOPOGRAPHY, METEOROLOGY, 
ENDEMICS, ETC. 

Importance of Forest Preservation and Timber 

Cultivation. 



By M. M. CHIPMAN, M. D., Chairman. 



Mr. President and Members of the Medical Society of the State of 
California: After the earth had performed its annual cycle for an incom- 
putable period, during the cooling off process, the mighty convulsions of 
conflicting elements, the gradual formation of soil upon its surface, the 
development of herb and fruit, and of animal life adapted to his uses and 
control, then was man created, or, as Mr. Darwin would say, developed, 
and given dominion over every living thing that moveth upon the earth; 
and the first commandment received from his Creator was: " Be fruitful 
aud multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it." And as we examine 
through the pages of history, whether among the nations who have been 
convex'sant with the Sacred Law and Record, or of those who were 
unacquainted with the Hebraic and Christian systems, we find that the 
highest physical development, the farthest advance in civilization, and the 
greatest national power have been attained by those branches of the race 
^who have appeared to be most earnest in carrying out the original injunc- 
tion. And of the leading men and great thinkers of all ages, those who 
have been most venerated and who have earned and received most of the 
enduring gratitude of their fellow-men, have either been discoverers of 
additional resources, or organizers of movements in the same general direc- 
tion of accumulation and advancement; and at this period of human 
existence no one who claims to be in sympathy with the cultivated humani- 
tarian sentiment of the age, even though not venerating its source, will 
dissent from the binding force of the vital principles enunciated in the 
great fundamental law. 

If we institute inquiry as to what this last and highest order of animated 
creation has accomplished in compliance with the great trust devolved upon 
him, we shall find that a great deal of energy and capacity have been dis- 
played in certain directions; that his seed has greatly multiplied, and that 
his suQcessors have spread over all the inhabitable parts of the continents 
and to the isles of the sea; that he has subjugated the animal kingdom and 



reduced it to his will; and has from the bowels of the earth brought forth 
the metals and moulded them to his purposes; has brought under cultiva- 
tion a vast area of earth's surface; and that throughout the whole world we 
find the results of his toil, the monuments of his intelligent labor, and the 
specimens of his inventive genius and skillful handiwork; in the great cities 
of his building; in his massive and beautiful palaces; his immense and 
numerous systems of public improvement; and in the ingenious and com- 
plicated devices for the elimination of force, the propulsion of conveyances, 
and the transmission of intelligence, whereby the whole civilized world is 
brought into immediate intercommunication and into close commercial and 
social relation and interdependence; and to this we may add the many 
appliances for human comfort, the numerous provisions for the maintenance 
and care of those who are unable to maintain and care for themselves; a 
high development of art; great advancement in the several sciences, and a 
comparative general diffusion of education and knowledge. But if we 
examine farther into the events of the past, and as to the early and present 
condition of this vice-royal domain, we shall find that this high steward has 
been in some respects, to our infinite regret, most derelict and culpable, as 
the terms of his dominion whilst charging him with the subjugation of the 
earth in nowise gave permission to destroy any part thereof; on the con- 
trary, the injunction to multiply and replenish as certainly enjoined the 
principle of conservation, as the lessening in any degi'ee the earth's popula- 
tion-sustaining resources, would to the same extent defeat the primary 
injunction itself, at whatever future period the population might become so 
numerous as to require the full measure of its productive capacity. And 
yet the comparison of ancient history and geography with the accounts of 
modern travelers and scientists, show that the space of the earth's surface, 
embracing Northern Africa, Southern and Eastern Euroj)e in part, and 
Western and Central Asia, that vast central region in which the history of 
the race had its commencement, and throughout which, in different sections 
and regions, alternately existed the most poj)ulous and most advanced 
nations of their times, the dominating empires of their respective ages, 
where were exhibited a display of regal magnificence and splendor unequal- 
ed in modern times, has been changed by the occupancy and acts of man 
himself, either to utter barrenness, in some regions, or in other parts to 
conditions in which the soil is capable of sustaining only a sparse and 
impoverished population; that those countries in which the great armies of 
the ancient Assyrians and Persians, and of the Crusaders and Tartars, in 
later ages, could, without an organized commissariat, secure adequate sup- 
plies in long marches, in our times would scarcely afford forage for a single 
regiment, the outlines and remains of broken and decayed internal improve- 
ments and the ruins of deserted cities being the only visible evidence of the 
former fertility, populousness, and opulence. 

The late Hon. George P. Marsh, in his work, " The Earth as Modified 
by Human Action," says: 

* ' It appears, then, that the fairest and fruitf ulest provinces of the Ro- 
man Empire, precisely that portion of terrestrial surface, in short, which 
about the commencement of the Christian Era was endowed with the greatest 
superiority of soil, climate, and position, which had been carried to the high- 
est pitch of physical improvement, and which thus combined the natural and 
artificial conditions best fitting it for the habitation and enjoyment of a dense 



and highly refined and cultivated population, are now completely exhausted 
of their fertility, or so diminished in productiveness, as with the exception 
of a few favored oases that have escaped the general ruin, to be no longer 
capable of affording sustenance to civilized man. If to this realm of desola- 
tion we add the now wasted and solitary soils of Persia and the remoter 
East, that once fed their millions on milk and honey, we shall see that a ter- 
ritory larger than all Europe, the abundance of which sustained, in bygone 
centuries, a population scarcely inferior to that of the whole Christian world 
of the present day, has been entirely withdrawn from human use, or at best 
is thinly inhabited by tribes too few in numbers, too poor in superfluous 
products, and too little advanced in culture and the social arts to contribute 
anything to the general moral and material interests of the great common- 
wealth of man." 

It is sad to contemplate that this immense region, which at the advent 
of the human race was the most important, considering climate and produc- 
tive resources, of any equal conterminous space on the earth's surface, can 
never be restored to sustain again its myriad population, or to be the theater 
of like busy scenes or great events; and it would now appear, in the light of 
the present, that the woes and desolation denounced by certain of the He- 
brew prophets against the powerful nations of antiquity, were just in ac- 
coi'dance, measure for measure, with their own improvidence and terrestrial 
destructiveness. But if we trace this matter still farther we shall ascertain 
that this destructive tendency has not been confined within the regions 
which were the seat of ancient empire, but that other parts of Asia have also 
suffered; that portions of Europe which were comparatively barbarous and 
uncultivated at the commencement of the Christian Era, have since been 
worn out and materially deteriorated both in soil and climate; that parts of 
Africa, beyond the northern countries referred to, have been made poorer 
by man's occupancy, and other parts allowed to become waste from neglect 
and lack of protection; and that even both divisions of the continent last 
opened to the settlement of the cultivating races have already begun to ex_ 
hibit, visibly, in certain sections, the deteriorating effects of their presence^ 

And having gone through and collated the works of the available au- 
thors upon this subject, I estimate as the sum of their statements that the to- 
tal lessening of the earth's productive resources, from the advent of man to 
the present time, is fully equal to and perhaps may be in excess of one-third 
of its original population-sustaining capacity, and that principally through 
the wastefulness and incompetence of its human occupants. And were we 
to calculate the future of the race by its past history, considering the pres- 
ent rate of increase of population, and that the period must soon arrive when 
the whole of the earth's surface will be in possession of a population neces- 
sarily dependent upon agriculture as its source of food supply, we would 
reach the conclusion that the acme of its existence is not far in advance — 
when through the decadence and degeneration of the following centuries it 
would more rapidly retrograde to a condition equivalent to its prehistoric ex- 
istence. 

It is supposed that the torrid and temperate regions of primeval earth 
were mostly wooded, and that the clearing of the land to make room for 
more needed products was one of the first tasks of subjugation ; but subse- 
quently, as human settlements increased and extended, forest fires grew in 
frequency, and with the devastations of war and the uses for building and 



fuel of large cities, and from other causes, to a great extent, carelessness, 
wantonness, and a lack of forethought, the earth has been so far stripped of 
its timber growth as to not only cause scarcity in many parts for building 
and other domestic uses, but with even much more serious result, it has been 
demonstrated that the excessive forest destruction has been the chief factor 
in effecting the great detrimental changes in climate and productiveness to 
which the earth has been subjected. 

Charles P. Daly, L.L.D., President of the American Geographical So- 
ciety, in his annual address before that society for the year 1880, made the 
following statement : 

" The extreme dryness and consequent lack of moisture for the fertiliza- 
tion of the fields in parts of India and China, hitherto fruitful and thickly 
populated, is attributed to the wanton destruction of the forests ou the hill- 
sides, the observations made by Mr. Hilliard, in 1879, in a visit to the 
famine- stricken province of Shan Si, in China, being confirmatory of that 
view." 

The Tartar province of Great Bucharia, only fifty years ago, was a very 
beautiful, fertile, and productive country, but since that time it has been 
stripped of its forests by injudicious clearing and by fire, during the ravages 
of a civil war, and the consequences are that the water-courses are dried up, 
the irrigating canals are empty, and the moving sands of the neighboring 
deserts being no longer restrained by the barriers of forest are every day 
gaining upon it, and the prospect is, will finish by transforming that whole 
country into a desert as desolate and solitary as those from which the sands 
are now drifting. 

The Kussians, in the conquest of the Caucassus, destroyed some of the 
forests, which served as protection to the contending Circassians, and in so 
doing changed those districts into a desert. 

Spain, which three centuries and a half ago was the richest and one of 
the most powerful nations of Europe, owes much of her decadence to the 
loss of productiveness of her soil, and the consequent impoverishment of 
her people from the excessive denudation of her territory. 

In France, extensive tracts of country, which a thousand years ago con- 
sisted of alternate woodland and fertile meadow and farming lands, have, by 
being strij)ped bare, become barren and incapable of sustaining but a small 
proportion of their former population ; and Italy has large tracts of the 
same character, and fi'om the same cause ; and several other countries of 
Europe are also known to have sustained similar loss in a greater or less 
proportion, and probably there is not a country in that geographic division 
which has not suffered more or less deteriorating effects from this same 
cause. 

Great damage has been sustained in Switzerland, in France, and in 
Italy, in the mountain districts and on the level lands adjacent, on account 
of the washing and abrasion of the sloping lands, the soil, rocks, and gravel 
being carried down to cover and ruin the valleys, because of the clearing off 
from about the sources of the streams. 

In the Italian provinces of Parma and Lombardy, where formerly the 
crops were pretty well assured, the clearing of the Apj)enines has material- 



ly changed the summer climate, the sirocco prevailing of late years to the 
great injury of the harvests and vineyards, and some seasons completely 
ruining the crops. 

In some parts of Italy, of France, and Swizerland. the Spring season 
has been rendered much more backward and more subject to late frosts by 
the felling of forests which had previously sheltered from the cold winds, 
which now stunt the vegetation and materially lessen the certainty and suc- 
cess of some kinds of crops; and in other European counti-ies, in some parts 
of the United States, and in other parts of the world, similar results have 
been observed. 

In South Africa, great changes have taken place in the meteorologic 
conditions within a comparatively recent period, on account of excessive 
clearing, the country having become much more subject to drought than 
formerly, and on the other hand, to sudden and disastrous inundations. 

Mauritius, which was formerly a very productive island, and exported 
considerable amounts of sugar, and was noted for the salubrity of its climate, 
has been nearly ruined as to its productiveness, and its climate changed so 
that it has become a hotbed of malaria, because of the destruction of its 
forests. The Island of Ceylon, and several of the important West India 
Islands, have been greatly damaged in the same manner; in fact; these in- 
stances of injurious effect might be continued almost indefinitely. 

Among the results of excessive clearing are the great general meteoro- 
logic changes which have adversely affected a vast proportion of the earth's 
surface, thereby increasing the prevalence of disease and cutting short the 
duration of human life by the greater accumulation of heat over extensively 
denuded surfaces, and the increased force and velocity of the wind and sud- 
den changes of temperature resulting therefrom, the increase in frequency 
and in extent and violence of cyclones and tornadoes being sequences and 
effects of the same disturbing cause. And it is now pretty generally un- 
derstood that the destruction of the forests, especially over the mountain- 
ous and hilly regions, where the streams have their sources, is the cause of 
the growing tendency to increased river flooding in the several respects of fre- 
quency, more rapid rising, greater volumne and force of current, as well as 
in extent of inundation, with proportionate increased disaster to the coun- 
tries and communities involved; the increased prevalence and increased 
extent of malarious and other diseases, caused by the greater area of land 
submerged, as consequences which follow later, not being usually included 
in estimates of damages in such cases. While the scope of this paper will 
admit of but a small number of the illustrative accounts, and but little of 
the detail in description and circumstances, yet the investigations are suffic- 
ient to prove that the excessive and very general denudation, has been the 
principal cause of the great physical decadence and injurious meteorologic 
changes which have been sustained. 

When rain falls into a forest, the descent is broken by the limbs and fol- 
iage of the trees, and the fallen leaves and other forest litter covering the 
ground farther protects it from the packing effect of a heavy rainfall, and at 
the same time restrains the water from flowing off, and the permeable vege- 
table mold, formed of the decayed leaves and twigs serves as a sponge to 
hold it upoQ the firmer soil beneath until it is gradually absorbed, and the 
roots of the trees conduct it on down into the subsoil. And sometimes the 



8 

roots themselves will penetrate through subsoil so compact as to be nearly- 
impervious to water, and lead it below into more porous strata. And thus 
is the water stored during seasons of superabundance, to break out in 
springs at points of lower elevation, where the stratum it rests upon, reaches 
the surface, or to be raised again as required, through the roots and bodies 
of the trees, and exhaled by the leaves, to perform its office in equalizing 
the moisture and temperature of the atmosphere. 

On the other hand, the open field is exposed to the full force of the ele- 
ments, and by the beating of the heavy storms, followed by the rapid evap- 
oration from direct exposure to sun and wind, the soil becomes baked and 
hardened, and when the rain falls there is a tendency to gather into pools 
and puddles on the surface, or it runs off, carrying the finest particles of 
soil with it, and on sloping lands channel-ways form, by which the water is 
the more rapidly conducted to the streams; and although plowing makes 
the ground permeable to the depth which the plow reaches, yet wherever 
there is grade sufficient to establish a current, it also favors the washing 
away of the soil. 

To illustrate effects, under different conditions, we will take as an example 
two converging water-sheds, embracing a large area of country which is 
traversed by streams having their sources in the surrounding high lands, 
and emptying into a larger stream, the common outlet. In case of a heavy 
rainfall, in the natural wooded condition, the greater part of the water is 
retained and absorbed, and what is not thus disposed of sipes away so grad- 
ually, and carries so little of earthy substance with it, that it but slightly dis- 
colors the streams into which it runs, and does not fill the channels beyond 
their carrying capacity, and the level country along their banks presents no 
appearance, by abraded surface, deposits of sand and gravel, or by other 
violence to nature, to indicate the actions of previous floods, and as dry 
weather sets in, the forest trees draw from their ample stores the moisture 
which gives them life and clothes them with verdure, until the close of the 
season. But let the same country be completely stripped of all its timber 
growth, and the water of each succeeding rainfall finds its way into the 
river channels with increased rapidity, as the soil of the naked land grows 
each year more and more impermeable, and as the channel-ways become 
more completely cut out, and the dark flood, as it sweeps over the valley 
farms and submerges the bordering towns, bears on its bosom to the sea and 
deposits on the fields, in the streets, and in the buildings on its course, and 
in the channels of the rivers, jDreparatory for the more extended flood to 
follow, that which, over the country from which it has been gathered, rep- 
resented millions in life-sustaining food, in successive crops of grain, of 
vegetables and of fruits, and during the ensuing summer the streams and 
springs become dried up and the soil fails to furnish moisture to the grow- 
ing crops, which dwarf and shrivel because that which was given in due 
season has run to waste. And this is the commencement of annually de- 
creasing harvests, until the starving inhabitants commence to migrate to 
other countries in quest of food, and through the increasing sterility, in the 
course of time, the whole region becomes an uninhabitable desert. 

This is but a pen pictui-e of what has already taken place over an im- 
mense area of the earth, either according to the full representation or in degree, 
and is simply the inevitable result of the violation of Nature's immutable 
laws. It is true that a large proportion of land is required for the produc- 



9 

tion of bread stuffs, fruits, vegetables, and pasturage; but the shelter and 
equalizing influence of forests are equally important, and in countries where 
the wind currents and raeteorologic conditions are such as tend to a scant 
and uncertain supply of rain, the maintenance of a certain proportion of 
woodland is a prime necessity, in order to insure the fruitfulness of the 
cultivated lands, and to obviate the gradual dessication and deterioration 
which are sure to follow excessive clearing. 

Although the early history of the European nations exhibits a great deal 
of vandalism, and of wastefulness as to the natural resources • of their 
respective countries, and even in later centuries a lack of wisdom and fore- 
thought to take steps to avert very serious consequences, yet after having 
already suffered occasional want and scarcity of food suj)ply, and having 
been confronted by the grave problem for the immediate future, they find 
enforced upon their attention that which has been ignored until quite 
recently in the past, and which may be stated as follows: How to use the 
earth without abusing it; or, more perspicuously, how to make a living off 
the lands in our possession, without impairing their productive capacity, or 
deteriorating the climatic cf nditions, in our own day, or for those who are 
to hold the title deeds after us? And we may hope that the energy of the 
Jaucasian race, and the greater enlightenment of modern civilization may, 
with some degree of success, be able to cope with the situation. 

Forest preservation and forest restoration have been receiving a great 
deal of attention in some of the countries of Europe, during the last quarter 
\^ of a century, and most European countries have enacted effective laws for 
\: forest protection, and much greater advancement has been made in forestry, 
in several of those countries, than in the United States. And the fact that 
forests are there largely held by the respective general and municipal gov- 
ernments, gives opportunity of carrying out measures of forest restoration 
with less impediment than could be done with conditions of ownership 
which prevail in this country, although in France and in some other 
European countries, the governments assume control of private forests, to 
limit the extent of cutting, and to enforce replanting in forest trees whenever 
it is thought the public interests require it. 

The French Government has done a great deal in the way of reboise- 
ment, or the restoration of woodlands on denuded tops and slopes of moun- 
tains, to arrest the erosion by torrents, which was ruining the lands of the 
valleys, with rock, gravel and other debris which was being carried down 
over them. The law of reboisement was passed in 1860, which enables the 
government agents to take possession of private lands wherever so situated 
that it is necessary they should be included in the plans of restoration, and 
in sixteen years from the commencement on the Alps, on the Cevennes, and 
on the Pyrenees, 63,168 acres had been successfully replanted at an enoi'- 
mous cost, but the whole expense was less than the damage which might 
have been produced by a single flood. 

The Governments of Italy and Switzerland are following the example of 
France in measures of reboisement. 

The Prussian Government, with other steps for the advancement of 
forestry, has parsed laws to encourage the formation of forest companies 
where the situation is such that tree planting and cultivation can be carried 



10 

on to better advantage by association than by individual effort, and 
municipal governments are also encouraged to engage in the w^ork of 
restoration. 

The maritime nations of Europe have given much attention to the 
reclamation of the sand dunes, and to arresting the movement of the drifting 
sands of their sea coasts on to the arable lands adjoining and toward the 
interior. The first recorded efforts in this direction were commenced in 
Denmark and in France about one hundred years ago, and have been con- 
tinued since, in France, on a more extensive scale than by any other nation. 

The engineer Bremontier, after having devised methods of restraining 
and fixing the sands, undertook, under the patronage of the French Govern- 
ment, the planting of maritime jjines, which he carried out with great suc- 
cess. The Department of Gascony had one hundred miles of sea coast cov- 
ered with sand dunes, extending from four to eighteen miles in breadth, 
back from the beach, and some of the dunes were hundreds of feet in 
height. Under Bremontier's superintendency all this region was covered 
with forest growth, and since his time, the work has been continued by ttie 
French Government, and at the present time over the whole line of the 
French Atlantic Coast, one hundred thousand acres of forests, valuable for 
their productions of tui'pentine, resin and timber, have been added to the 
national resources, and a still greater quantity of valuable agricultural land 
has been rescued thereby from the certain destruction with which it was 
threatened by the advancing sand hills. And adding to this the beneficial 
effect upon the climate to the interior by this broad belt of pine timber as a 
protection from the ocean winds, it will be seen that the results achieved 
are of very great importance. 

George B. Emerson, in a report on the trees and shrubs growing in the 
forests of Massachusetts, states: that in 1872 he visited the region saved by 
Bremontier, and that, in the midst of the recovered region, he stopped a day 
or two at a beautiful town where a hundred thousand persons from P^ris 
and other cities of France, attracted by the genial climate and health giving 
atmosphere of the pine forests, had passed the Winter. He also states that 
he saw in many places deciduous trees, oaks, ashes, beeches and others, 
growing luxuriantly under the protection of the pines. 

Schools of forestry have been established in several countries of Europe, 
and in Germany special plans of training have been adopted, including the 
acquisition of practical experience by devoting a certain time to manual la- 
bor in tree planting and timber cultivation under the direction of skilled in- 
structors, and graduates of these institutions are eligible to government ap- 
pointments or to enter the employment, as superintendents, of other parties. 
There are nine schools of this description in the German Empire. There 
are several countries in Europe, also, where stations are kept up by the gov- 
ernments for making meteorologic observations to ascertain the comparative 
conditions of atmosphere, rainfall, etc., as between forest-covered situations 
and the open fields. 

In the United States, forestry is an industry of recent introduction. 
Congress has passed laws intended to encourage tree planting on the public 
lands, but without extensive results as yet. But the able and very efficient 
Chief of the Forestry Division of the Department of Agriculture, has col- 



11 

lected and made public through his several reports a vast amount of useful 
information which, with his many valuable suggestions, is directing atten- 
tion to the great importance of the subject, and is operating as a stimulus in 
the development of this neglected branch of agriculture. About one-half of 
the several States of the Union have passed laws to protect and encourage 
tree planting along the highways, some of them granting a certain amount 
of exemption from taxation therefor, and a small number have provided cash 
bounties for successful timber cultivation. The State of California gives 
one dollar for each thrifty tree planted along a highway, after four years 
growth. But the association of individuals for the promotion of forestry 
has ajDparently effected more than has been accomplished, directly, by State 
or Federal legislation. 

In Minnesota, a State Forestrj' Association has been formed for the 
encouragement and promotion of forest culture, by the collection and diffu- 
sion of information on that subject, to secure the general observance of 
arbor day throughout the State, and to promote the ultimate redemption of 
the treeless regions of Minnesota. This Association gives premiums for the 
encouragement of tree planting, in which it has been aided by legislative 
approj^riation. 

The Iowa State Horticultural Society began, in 1872, to offer premiums 
to encourage tree planting, and it has printed annually, for gratuitous distri- 
bution among planters, a pamphlet containing directions for procuring, 
storing and planting of seeds, cuttings and plants, with hints on best species 
and varieties, modes of culture, etc., for artificial forests and shelter belts in 
that State. This Society has also received State aid. 

In the State of Ohio, in January last, a society was formed to be known 
as the Ohio State Forestry Association, the object being to encourage the 
protection and planting of forest and ornamental trees, and to promote 
forest culture — the seat of the Society and place of business to be at Cincin- 
nati, with provisions for branches in the different counties of the State; the 
Presidents of such branches to be ex-officio members of the State Asso- 
ciation. 

The first national association for the promotion of forestry was formed 
in 1875, as the American Forestry Association, of which Dr. John A. 
Warder, of Ohio, was elected President. 

Among the guests invited by the Government to participate in the cen- 
tennial anniversary of the surrender of Lord Gornwallis at Yorktown, in the 
fall of 18S1, were seven Prussian army officers bearing the name of Von 
Steuben, and representing the family of General Steuben of the American 
Revobition. One of these officers was, at the time, Superintendent of 
Prussian Crown lands. This gentleman, in the course of a journey through 
the country, had noticed the waste and neglect in the matter of American 
■woodlands, and, when at Cincinnati, took occasion to mention the urgent need 
of measures for their conservation and renewal. This is believed to have been 
the first incident in the movement which led to a call for a Forestry Conven- 
tion at Cincinnati, to be held on the 25th of April, 1882, and the following 
four days. Many citizens of Cincinnati were active in making preparations 
for the Convention, and funds were raised to defray the expenses. An im- 
mense number of invitations were sent out to all parts of the United States 



12 

and Canada. Governor Foster, of Ohio, appointed the 27th day of April as 
" Arbor Day," and Eden Park, in Cincinnati, was designated as a place for 
planting a great number of memorial trees in honor of distinguished persons 
living and deceased. The Convention was largely attended, and its exer- 
cises were conducted with harmony and enthusiasm, and the results 
eminently satisfactory — the most important being the organization of a 
permanent association to be known as the American Forestry Congress. 

An adjourned meeting of the American Forestry Congress was held in 
Montreal in August, 1882, at which time delegates were present from the 
American Forestry Association, "and this last-named Association then became 
merged in and united with the other movement. 

The annual meeting of the Forestry Congress for 1883 is to be held at 
St. Paul, Minnesota, in August. 

This American movement was evidently inaugurated from the most 
patriotic and philanthropic motives, and the gentlemen who participate in it 
are men of learning, character and influence, of different sections of the 
United States and of the Canadian dominions; and I regard it as a most 
hopeful sign of progress, and anticipate that by enlightening the people in 
regard to these matters, and by the influence and example of its members, 
the American Forestry Congress will lead in rescuing this country and this 
continent from the degree of ruin which has befallen so large a proportion 
of the territory of the older countries. 

In the States of Minnesota, Nebraska, Iowa and Kansas, forest culture 
is making encouraging progress, and on many of the farms, shelter belts and 
tracts of timber are becoming a part of the system of agriculture. Two 
artificial forests are reported from Kansas, of 500 acres in each. 

Timber culture is also receiving attention in Illinois, and, to some ex- 
tent, in other States. 

Some of the Eastern villages have been finely improved in the matter 
of shaded avenues and tree and shrubbery adornment, through the organi- 
zation of village improvement associations, and it has been found that better 
results are attained by this concerted action than by individual effort. 

The United States is lamentably deficient in agricultural schools, and 
as to schools of forestry there is but one in America which can be appro- 
priately so named. Harvard University, from endowments provided by 
the wills of two deceased citizens of Massachusetts — Benjamin Bus- 
sey, of Koxbury, and James Arnold, of New Bedford — has a professor- 
ship of tree culture, and an aboretum of 137 acres connected with it; but it 
is doubtful if this endowed school imparts as thorough practical knowledge 
in that department as the training schools of the other continent. 

The State of California extends from 32° 32' to 42" north latitude, being 
about 800 miles in length, and 19.0 miles in average width, with 1,097 miles 
of sea coast; and its western border is occupied by a range of mountains 
which reach in places quite to the ocean and form a walled line of sea coast, 
and at points project promontories beyond the coast line, and at other places 
recede enough to leave strips of level land and small valleys between the 
foothills and the ocean shore; but the general direction is parallel with the 



13 

coast. This coast range extends nearly the entire length of the State, and 
its snmniit varies from 2,000 feet to about 6,000 feet, for the highest peaks, 
the altitude not being sufficient to retain the snow, as Summer approaches, 
which covers it at times during the Winter season; but it serves as a barrier 
against the ocean fogs and the excessive force of the sea breeze, greatly 
modifying the climate of the interior favorably as to bodily comfort and the 
production of semi-tropic vegetation. And as if nature in this formation 
had in view the greatest economy of space combined with commercial con- 
venience and climatic effect, planted this range in timber growth suited in 
part for fuel and other domestic uses, and in considerable extent with a 
most magnificent forest tree not found elsewhere, and especially adapted to 
its situation, thus increasing the capacity of the range as to its climatic in- 
fluence, and furnishing at the same time an accessible supply of excellent 
timber and lumber. 

It would be desirable, both with reference to the saving of transporta- 
tion and as to the meteorologic effect, were the surface of the interior val- 
leys alternated with a greater proportion of timber growth; but with the 
limited area of forest within the boundaries of the State it is distributed to 
the best advantage for the permanent interests of the population, as the re- 
serve or remoter forests of the Sierra Nevada cover the snow which falls 
copiously during the Winter season in that elevated region, and restrain its 
rapid melting and the torrential swelling of the streams and attendant dis- 
astrous consequences which would result were the extensive area of the 
upper western slope of the range a bare surface; and the snow thus held to 
go off gradually in the shade of the forests serves as a lasting and perma- 
nent source of supply to the streams of this region, which water a large pro- 
portion of the valley lands of the State. And these forests, and the timber 
and brush on the slope lower down, contribute in other important respects 
to the preservation of the lands both of mountain and valley, and to the ac- 
cumulation of moisture and the conservation of the water supply, as is 
proven by meteorlogic observations in similar situations, and by the results 
of forest destruction in the mountainous regions of the old world. 

C. F. Reed, Esq., at the time President of the State Board of Agricul- 
ture, in 1868, estimated that a twentieth part of the State was covered with 
heavy timber, and one-eighth, more or less, with trees of some kind; that 
within twenty years at least one-third of the whole native supply of acces- 
sible timber had been cut off and destroyed, and that judging the future 
by the past it would only require about forty years more to exhaust the en- 
tire present supply. Dr. Gray and others have corroborated the opinion of 
Mr. Reed; but Dr. A. Kellogg, in a brief article included in the last report 
of the State Mineralogist, expresses a more hopeful view, saying: " It is 
evident that the question of timber supply is one about which we need have 
little care or anxiety, if only our resources in that direction shall receive 
careful husbandry." But whilst I shall not express an opinion as to which 
of these somewhat conflicting views is nearest correct, I think, however, 
that Dr. Kellogg has not calculated the full extent of the probable future 
market of the Sierra Nevada lumber; as, instead of going no farther east 
than the Wahsatch Mountains, as according to the doctor's calculation, the 
eastern lumber resources are so rapidly diminishing that, in my opinion, the 
time is not distant when California sugar pine will bear transportation and 
find market in localities even to the eastward of the Rocky Mountains. 



14 

For building purposes, the supply of stone and material for bricks is 
apparently inexhaustible, and iron can be utilized in that direction to a 
greater extent than it has been hitherto; and as timber and lumber becomes 
scarce and high priced, communities economise in their use. 

By the adoption of no-feace laws, and by largely substituting iron wire 
for lumber, the amount of lumber and timber being used for fencing at the 
present time is very small as compared with its use for that purpose thirty 
years ago; and other n;iaterials have taken the place, and can still further 
be made to take the place, of timber and lumber for many purposes without 
serious detriment. And it is also reported that compressed straw furnishes 
as good a material for lumber as is manufactured from wood. 

As to fuel, nature at a period when none of earth's inhabitants were 
sufficiently advanced to require its use, buried of its superabundant pro- 
ducts vast stores of fuel to supplement the surface supply in this later period, 
as might be needed by its teeming population; and the study and investiga- 
tions of chemists and inventors are already opening out an unlimited store 
of heat and artificial light which has been long known to exist in one of the 
most abundant elements of nature but which has hitherto remained locked 
up from our use for those purposes from a lack of knowledge of a method 
of obtaining and applying it with economic profit. Through the kindness 
of Dr. James Nevius Hyde, of Chicago, I have received a communication 
from Henry C. Rew, Esq., a gentleman who is connected with a company 
which is now lighting the west division of that city with a kind of gas just 
brought into use; and works are being constructed at the Elgin watch 
factory to furnish gas for heating purposes by the same company. The gas 
used for heating purposes is water gas, which is manufactured by decomposing 
steam into its constituent elements, oxygen and hydrogen, by bringing it into 
contact with incandescent carbon. Water gas burns with intense heat, and 
Mr. Rew states that there is ever}' reason to believe that it is to become the 
fuel of the future, as one ton of coal utilized in manufacturing the water gas 
supplies as much heat as four and one-half tons by direct combustion, with 
the additional advantage that water gas burns without smoke. The lighting 
gas of this company is manufactured by charging the water gas with suffi- 
cient petroleum to make it illuminating. An inexpensive process, as this is 
claimed to be, which increases the heating power of coal four hundred and 
fifty per cent, may certainly be classed among the important and most use- 
ful of modern discoveries. 

So that, after having studied over the situation and the circumstances 
bearing upon these questions, I conclude that although an abundant and 
cheap lumber and fuel supply is desirable, yet, with the economy which is 
practicable and the substitutes which are abundant as regards the former, 
and the modern available means of distributing the great supplies of the 
latter, with the multiplication of those resources b}' the late discoveries, in- 
cluding the use and application of electricity, and the facility and certainty 
with which it has been demonstrated that the farming communities can pro- 
duce supplies for themselves upon their own homesteads, and that although 
wastefulness of any of earth's supplies of necessaries is not justifiable, yet 
that the means of shelter and housing, and lumber for the necessary uses of 
the world's population, and the supply of fuel for the purposes of personal 
comfort and domestic uses ; the creation of artificial light wherever required, 
and for the production of the great power which keeps up the busy hum 



15 

of the machinery of the earth's industries and the world's commerce, are so 
much in excess of the earth's prospective future food-producing capacity that 
there need be no particular concern at this period in that direction ; that 
the ^reat terrestrial questions for the future populations, will be the questions 
of food and of clothing ; and as the accumulation of population favors the 
development of disease ; and as the ignorance, improvidence, and wasteful- 
ness of the j)ast has greatly deteriorated the earth's general salubrity and 
sanitary condition, questions of combatting disease and of sanitary reform 
will also keep pace with those of pi'imal necessity. 

Over the greater proportion of the agricultural districts of California 
there is a liability of receiving a less amount of rainfall in the winter months 
with the excess of evaporation which may follow during the growing season 
than is required to mature the crop ; and this being an understood fact, the 
conditions are therefore a commendable object of study and observation, 
with the purpose of devising means of successfully combatting this, the 
greatest natural enemy of our industrial and permanent prosperity. And 
considering these circumstances, the proportion of woodland in this State was 
too small when it first came into the possession of the American people ; 
and we have to regret that instead of watching and preserving the area as we 
found it, the denudation has been extended and the limit of woodland still 
narrowed down. 

The early miners accomplished a proportion of the extensive destruction . 
on the west slope of the Sierra Nevada. Without restraint of law, except 
of their own making, their temptations were great, and they were so wrapped 
up in the pursuit of the coveted gold that they were unmindful of other 
considerations. But the other causes of destruction are in part still continued 
down to the present time, and these should be looked after and arrested, espe- 
cially that of careless and reckless fire-setting, which is reponsible for much 
of the destruction, with nothing whatever to show in return for the loss. 

On the Coast Range there has also been a marked diminution of the 
timber area, both of the wooded lands which were lookeei to for fuel supply 
and of the redwood forests; and the" destruction from fire there has also 
been immense. 

S. P. Pharis, who has been engaged with the industries of the redwood 
forests of San Mateo County for thirty years, mostly in shingle manufac- 
turing, and as a proprietor of considerable tracts of timber lands, has fur- 
nished the following statement: 

" We have fires in the timber nearly every year, more or less. The 
most destructive forest fire in San Mateo County occurred in November, 
1880. The destruction of sawing timber and other property by that fire 
caused a direct loss of fifty thousand dollars, and I estimate that the dam- 
age done by stopping the growth of pine, redwood and tanbark oak, and by 
killing the second growth of different kinds of wood that in a few years would 
have been of great value, to have been as much more — making the total loss 
one hundred thousand dollars. There was a very destructive fire in the 
forests of Santa Cruz County the same year. The last forest fire in San 
Mateo County occurred in the Fall of 1882. I have worked in the redwoods 
of this county for the last thirty years, and I think I can say that the bulk 
of timber destroyed by fire would equal that which has been made use of. 



16 

although not of as much value, yet as much as one-third of it was good saw- 
ing timber, And from what I have heard and know the same estimate 
might be applied to the timber of Santa Cruz County." 

So much of forest fires in San Mateo and Santa Cruz Counties alone, 
the timbered area of which forms but a small part of the forests of the Coast 
Eange. 

Our present State laws for the prevention of forest fires are nearly in- 
operative, for the reason that there are not officers or men employed to see 
to their enforcement; and it is quite apparent that our forests will not re- 
ceive the protection commensurate with the interests involved until an effi- 
cient system of mounted patrol during the dry season is adopted, which 
might be done by the passage of a law granting authority to organize dis- 
tricts in which to elect officers empowered to employ suitable men to see to 
the enforcement of the regulations regarding the building or lighting of 
fires in forests, with power to make arrests should it become necessary, to 
extinguish fires, and to call out assistance in case of its being required. 

In a paper presented to the California Academy of Sciences by Dr. Henry 
N. Bolander, in October, 1875, occurs the following: 

"Another beneficial feature of the sequoia sempervirens is the great 
power it possesses in condensing fogs and mists. A heavy fog is always turned 
into rain, wetting the soil and supplying the springs with water during the 
dry season. Springs in and near the redwoods are never in want of a good 
supply of water, and crops on the Coast Range are not liable to fail. It is my 
firm conviction, if the redwoods are destroyed — and they necessarily will be if 
not protected by a wise action of our Government — California will become a 
desert in the true sense of the word. In their safety depends the future 
well being of the State. They are our safe guard. It remains to be seen 
whether we shall be benefited by the horrible experience such countries as 
Asia Minor, Greece, Spain and France have made by having barbarously 
destroyed their woods and forests. But with us it is even of a more serious 
nature. Wise Governments would be able to replace them in those coun- 
tries, but no power on earth can restore the woods of California when com- 
pletely destroyed." 

And yet the warnings of Dr. Bolander, Dr. Asa Gray, and other Jearned 
and competent men who have investigated this subject, have not received 
attention to produce any effective results. It would, indeed, have been of 
inestimable advantage to the permanent welfare of the State had our Gov- 
ernment have profited by the experience of the nations of the old world and 
have applied the present enlightened course of forest management of cer- 
tain European nations herein referred to in that connection to the preser- 
vation of the limited timber tracts of this State. The forests of both moun- 
tain ranges should have been surveyed off and their boundaries conspicu- 
ously defined, and then turned over to the State Government, with certain 
restrictions, to be kept as perpetual timber preserves, the timber to be cut 
only in accordance with certain legally established rules; to leave uninjured 
all trees under certain dimensions, and on payment to the State of taxes to be 
applied to defraying the expense of the surveillance, the maintenance of a for- 
est police, and the work of tree planting in any localities within those boun- 
daries which were bare of timber; with a reserve to the Government of tim- 
ber for Government uses, and, in acknowledgment of its joint suzerainty, the 



17 

privilege of levying a light duty on all lumber exported. Such an arrange- 
ment, with laws regulating the use of the preserves as stock range, and only 
on payment of State tax therefor, and prohibiting such use when or in such 
manner as might prove detrimental to the timber growth, would have 
insured a lasting supply of forest j)roducts to the people of this State, and 
what is of much more importance, would have been an effective guard 
against detrimental changes and irregularities in the water supply and in 
the meteorologic conditions which the destruction of the forests would entail. 
But that opportunity has been lost, as nearly all the timber lands within 
the State have already passed into the ownershij) of private parties or of 
corporate companies. 

At its last session, the Legislature of the State of New York passed an 
Act providing for a State park, to be known as the Adirondack Park, to be 
constituted of the country around the headwaters of the Hudson, and also 
including a large region drained by the Black, Indian, Oswegatchie, Grass, 
Racket, St. Regis, Salmon and Ausable Rivers. The principle object of 
this Act is the purpose of preserving the forests in order to the maintenance 
of the waters of those streams for the supply of canals and for hydraulic 
power. The State owns only a part of the lands within the boundaries of 
the proposed park, but by withholding lands from sale for arrears of taxes, 
and by acquiring otherwise, as favorable opportunities may offer, the inten- 
tion is to add to the State's holdings as fast as practicable. 

In Wisconsin there is a project on foot of forming a State park of the 
country including the headwaters of the Chippewa and other rivers. And 
in Minnesota, of preserving in that way the forests of the headwaters of the 
Mississippi. And as in California the destruction of the forests would 
involve the destruction of every other important interest, and as the entire 
population is therefore jointly and severally concerned in their preservation, 
by the desire which all should possess for the welfare and assured means of 
subsistence of their children and their posterity, and for the future pros- 
perity and greatness of the State, the forests of the State should be brought 
within the security of State control, and not left to the chances of individual 
interests and individual caprice. A survey should be made and lines estab- 
lished on both sides of the western or timbered Coast Range, defining the 
forest limits, and a line established on the west slope of the Sierra Nevada, 
leaving the forest belts to the eastward, and the State line might serve in° 
part as the eastern boundary; and within those limits the State should 
acquire the lands as opportunities should occur, by forfeit for non-payment of 
taxes, by purchase whenever offered at low figures; and probably the United 
States Grovernment would cede to the State for such purpose whatever 
tracts might not have been disposed of, and individuals might donate tracts, 
after having stripped off the valuable timber, which in time, if protected, 
would grow up in timber again, and replanting might be resorted to where 
necessary. And as the State continues whilst the lives of individuals termi- 
nate, it could afford lo wait for such opportunities, until in the course of a 
generation or two it would have acquired all the territory within those 
boundaries as Public Forest Reservations. 

Having spent a good deal of time in traveling about, and in sojourning 
at different points in this State in studying the geographic and climatic con- 
ditions, I will now make some suggestions as to what might be done to in- 



18 

crease its agricultural resources, to favorably modify its climate and to im- 
prove its scenery. 

The great interior valley of the State is about four hundred miles in 
length and nearly fifty miles in average breadth, and being almost destitute 
of timber the wind sweeps down over it from the north without any effective 
check, and at times of low temperature, when in full force, produces discom- 
fort to animal life and retards the growth of vegetation; and its dessicating 
effect upon the soil and crops during the Spring and first of the Summer 
months is fi-equently the cause of great damage and sometimes of complete 
crop failure. And when the crop has arrived at maturity, its force is such 
as to interfere with the labor of harvesting, and not unfrequently produces 
great waste by threshing out the ripened standing grain. 

The following paragraph, taken from the Colusa Siui of June 12. 1880, 
is an illustration of the damage which may be done by the north wind at the 
approach of harvest time : 

' ' We will not get over half as much for our wheat as we would have 
gotten if all things had continued as favorable as thej' were three weeks ago. 
That was the best prospect we ever saw, and the county would have aver- 
aged twenty-five bushels to the acre. There are, at the lowest calculation, 
300,000 acres in wheat, which, at tweuty-five bushels, would give us 7,500,- 
000 bu.sbels. We shall be highly delighted if we gather as much as 4,000,- 
000 bushels even of the shrunken wiieat, which we shall have to put on the 
market at a reduced iDrice. We placed the loss last week at $1,000,000, or 
over, but the difference to Colusa County between the full crop which we 
expected and what we will be likely to get will be, even at the low price we 
anticipate, between $2,000,000 and $3,000,000. And the wind is still blow- 
ing. The ripe grain is being threshed out, and that which is still green, 
shriveled up. Tehama, Yolo, Sutter, Solano, most of Butte, and the San 
Joaquin Valley, are in precisely the same condition. The wheat crop of the 
entire State will be cut short nearly one-half in value by the continued 
north winds." 

It is entirely within the means of human agency to effect a great change 
in regard to this disagreeable and very unprofitable feature of the climate of 
that valley. Could belts of timber of forty rods in breadth be extended 
ftcross the valley, with intervals of seven-eighths of a mile between for cul- 
tivation, it would produce very beneficial results. On account of the in- 
creased porosity and absorptive capacity which the soil would soon acquire 
through the permeating and lifting effect of the network of roots, and other 
favoring circumstances whioh are present when land is covered with timber 
growth, so much greater proportion of the rain-fall would be retained and 
stored in these forest-covered strips as to give them to some extent the char- 
ter of reservoirs, which, being protected from sun and wind, would serve 
throughout the season by the exhalations of the leaves of the trees to im- 
part a degree of moisture to the atmosphere. And as the dessicating effect 
of the wind is in proportion to its lack of moisture and its velocity, this, ad- 
ded to the forcible, resistance of the system of cross belts, and the increase 
of rainfall which might reasonably be .anticipated, would so favor the pro- 
duction of full crops and of harvesting without waste, as to add immensely 
to the profit of grain and hay raising; and under those conditions other kinds 
of farming, such as the production of sorghum, tomatoes, melons, etc., could 



19 

be added. And as the leeward during the prevalence of the objectionable 
winds would be on the sunny side of the timber, under the shelter of the 
protecting woodland, the orange, the lime, the nectarine, and other semi- 
tropic fruits would flourish where now their culture is impracticable. 

The general effects which would be produced by forest planting in the 
Sacramento Valley are quite obvious, but as to the increase of the rainfall 
I will add further : An increased rainfall by the restoration of the forests, or 
by additions to the forest area, has been noted in several countries. Ob- 
servations made in France by A. Matthieu, Professor of Natural History in 
the Forest School at Nancy ; by Marshal Vaillant, at the Government For- 
ests at Fontainbleau and near Versailles ; by M. Fautrat, in the forests of 
Hallette and Ermenonville; and observations also at Asschaffenburg, in Ba- 
varia, and at stations in other countries in Europe — corresponding observa- 
tions being made in the open fields near each forest — ^have established the 
fact that more rain falls over forests than over open fields ; and it is well 
known that moisture of the earth attracts the clouds of vapor, and that 
wherever the moister air exists, there the condensation will take place most 
rapidly. If a current of air charged with sufficient vapor under favoring 
circumstances to culminate in a shower, is wafted over an expanse of naked 
sun-scorched earth, as it comes in contact with the heated atmosphere the 
vapor becomes rarified and expanded and passes off into infinity ; but, on 
the other hand, if a cloud of vapor is carried over a forest, the lower tem- 
perature and the moisture of the atmosphere resting over it favors condensa- 
tion, and precipitation takes place, and the forest itself not only receives 
additional moisture but open country in the immediate neighborhood partici- 
pates in the benefit. And then, in the case of a general rain in the Sacra- 
mento Valley, the wind blows up from the southward, and as timber belts 
would obstruct the north winds, so they would also retard the rain-bearing 
currents from the reverse direction, and by the longer time in passing 
enforce a greater amount of preciptation in the valley, leaving less vapor 
to pass on to the mountains beyond, where' the annual rainfall is so abun- 
dant that some degree of diminution would produce no injury. 

The effect of a limited forest area, surrounded by a great expanse of 
open country, on the amount of rainfall is not appreciable ; but the propor- 
tion which I have proposed wovild undoubtedly produce a decided influence in 
that particular as well as in the other respects mentioned, with the additional 
advantages which would follow by the modification of the extreme summer 
heat, protection from the cold winter winds, and the purification from all 
miasmatic effluvia ; which increased salubrity would be in itself an improve- 
ment that would add much to the desirability of that section for residence. 
And the thorough and successful cultivation in timber in that or in greater 
proportion, would not only greatly increase the general prosperity, but 
would more than double the value of the properties, and with the arrest of 
the progressive destruction from another source, would couvert our great 
valley into one of the finest regions of the earth. 

There are other valleys in this State which would be benefited by giving 
more attention to forest tree planting. "Wind-breaks Avould be of great 
advantage throughout the Santa Clara Valley, or in any part of it, for the 
protection to the orcharding and other farming interests, as well as by add- 
ing to the beauty of the landscape and the salubrity of the climate; and 
timber culture would be remunerative for the purpose of fuel where the 



20 

supply is as remote and the price as high as it is in most parts of that 
valley. 

The Pajaro and Salinas Valleys would both be improved by the intro- 
duction of timber cultivation. Timber belts across the Santa Clara Valley 
of Ventura County would redeem it from its scourge of hot winds which 
rush down from the Mojave Desert, scorching up its vegeat^.ion. In fact, 
nearly all parts of the State which are adapted to agriculture would be 
benefited by a resort to artificial timber growth to a greater extent than now 
prevails. 

To line the sides of the highways with trees is an improvement to the 
farms through which they pass, and a benefit to the roads and to the public; 
and trees set out on a line at such distances as to form posts to which 
boards, poles or barbed wire can be attached, have been found to answer an 
excellent purpose; 

The waste places of all farms should be set out in timber trees, and 
there is a great deal of land in this State which is too poor to cultivate with 
profit in cereals or other farm products, which would prove fairly remuner- 
ative if planted in forest, especially in localities where lumber is dear and 
fuel is scarce, and the soil would improve under a crop of deciduous trees. 

Forest cultivation requires an investment which does not yield immedi- 
ate returns; but if the trees are set out as thick as they should be, after 
three years' growth the superabundant trees will make fuel, and poles for 
fencing and other purposes, and from that on the forest will need but little 
attention, whilst the thinning out necessary to make room for the increased 
growth of the timber yields a constant harvest which will last for a long 
period; and the other benefits of the forest are always present. 

I have pointed out what might be done, and what would result greatly 
to the advantage of the State, and yet I hardly anticipate soon seeing as 
general a movement in that direction as I have herein indicated and as 
would inure to the benefit of the people themselves immediately concerned; 
but if the more enterprising will take the initiative, I think that others 
would soon follow their example, and the subject is specially commended to 
the attention of gentlemen who are in possession of large tracts and of 
abundant means. 

The only statements which 1 have obtained of the cost of raising, and 
of pecuniary results of forest culture in this State, are certainly encourag- 
ing. The following result, by General Stratton of Alameda County, was 
taken from an article by Robert C. E. Stearns, Ph. D., of Berkeley, which 
appeared in the January number of the American Journal of Forestry: 

" General Stratton planted forty-five acres in eucalyptus in 1868. 
Recently twenty acres of this artificial forest have been cleared to make 
room for an orchard, and after charging every item of cost, and a yearly 
rental of five dollars per acre, the net profits, as shown by the owner, are 
$3,866 on the twenty acres in eleven years." 

In May, 1882, I took a look at the fine eucalyptus grove of George A. 
Nadeau, located seven miles south of Los Angeles City, which consists of 
nintey-seven acres in eucalyptus, being the largest artificial forest in the 
State. The seeds were sown in nursery in December, 1875, and about six 



21 

months afterwards — that is, in May and June, 1876 — the young trees were 
set out, and at the time 1 examined them, six years after the replanting, 
the largest trees were twelve inches in diameter, and the average from eight 
to nine inches, and from sixty to seventy-live feet in hight. Recently Mr. 
Nadeau has sent me the following definite statement of expenses, and the 
present value of the timber: 

Cost of trees at the time of setting out, $7.50 per acre; labor of replant- 
ing, $5 per acre; expense of after cultivation, $5 per acre; rental of laud at 
$3 per acre per annum amounts to $21 per acre for the seven years ; total 
cost per acre for the seven years' growth, $38.50. The estimated average 
amount of wood on the land is thirty-five cords per acre, which is worth in 
that locality $3 per cord, in the tree, giving $105 per acre as the present 
value of the timber. Or the total cost of the body of timber, $3,734.50, and 
the present value, $10,185; net profit, $6,450.50. 

In a locality where fuel is of less value, there would be less profit in 
the production of wood; but with that growth, the cultivation would still 
be remunerative where wood is not worth more that half what it is in that 
part of Los Angeles County. 

In the upper part of San Joaquin Valley, tree planting of any kind has 
been attended with very little success except in connection with irrigation; 
but by this artificial method of wetting the soil, large tracts of that valley 
which formerly presented a desert-like appearance have been changed into 
productive farms, on which are raised fine crops of alfalfa, corn, sorghum, 
and various kinds of vegetables; and a large proportion of those irrigated 
lands are being covered with vineyards and orchards, the success of vine and 
fruit-tree growth and the production of fruits having been very gratifying. 
And to add to the future prospect of this section of light rainfall, it has been 
ascertained that when the land has been once saturated it requires but a 
small amount of water, comparatively, afterwards to keep it sufficiently 
moist, thus leaving a surplus from the lands first brought under irrigation to 
be carried on to new lands; and the area of irrigated and moist lands is con- 
stantly being extended thereby from year to year. 

The litigation between the riparian claimants and the colonists is a mat- 
ter to be regretted, and the fact, which has been shown by experience, that 
trees are more likely to be injured by frost the following Winter, and the 
grapes and fruits are not of as good quality when the irrigation is continued 
until late in the season, might help to a solution of the difficulty, as the time 
of water-scarcity comes after those interests have done with most of their 
season's supply; and if a compromise could be effected by abitration, before 
a commission composed of competent disinterested men, and an arrange- 
ment entered into by consulting the interests mutually of all the parties con- 
cerned, and the matter then so fixed that all thereafter would understand 
their respective rights, it would be better than a continuance of the liti- 
gation and uncertainy. There are some streams in this valley which have 
not been made to do much duty in the way of irrigation as yet, the waters 
of which might be made available for that purjDOse. The Tuolumne, Stanis- 
laus and Mokelumne could all be carried in ditches so as to cover large 
scopes of country well adapted to irrigation; and although it might not be 
profitable to irrigate for the production of the cereals, yet if each farmer 
could irrigate a part, perhaps one-tenth of his acreage, so that he might 



22 

raise trees, fruits, alfalfa and vegetables, it would add greatly to his resour- 
ces, increase the value of his land, and be of general utility and advantage; 
and at the present low rates of interest I tbink the additional income which 
it would bring to the land holders would be more than the equivalent of the 
use of the money required for the necessary improvements. Besides the 
advantage of the immediate increased production by irrigation, the arrest of 
the Avater, instead of allowing it to run off to the sea, and distributing it 
over the land, there to evaporate, with the protection to the soil by the sur- 
face-covering of vegetation, has otherwise a very beneficial effect in its gen- 
eral tendency of decreasing the excessive aridity of the climate of the vicinity.* 

I believe there is a great future for the irrigable districts of California, 
but irrigation is something of which the American people have very little 
practical knowledge, except what has been acquired by the comparatively 
brief experience in this State, and the best methods of economizing, and the 
most suitable times of applying the water, are proper objects of everyday 
thought by the irrigating planter; but the question of the preservation of 
the sources of supply being at the foundation of their prosperity should also 
be made a subject of study and of watchfulness by every property owner of 
the valley. 

Irrigation has a tendency to the development of miasma, but I am con- 
vinced that with proper management and care there need be very little cause 
of apprehension on that account. The surface of the land should be so 
leveleo. and arranged that the water will not stand in pools to stagnate, 
especially near the dwelling, and the ditches should be kept cleaned out so 
as to be free from decaying vegetable matter, and care should be taken to 
have pure water for drinking, as the use of impure water is a very common 
cause of chills and fever. The surface water in the San Joaquin Valley is 
generally unwholesome, but by boring to some depth excellent water is 
obtained; but in any case where it is necessary to use surface water the ex- 
pedient of boiling renders the impurities inert, for which purpose an agate 
vessel is preferable. Filtering does not answer the purpose, as the filter is 
liable to become foul from putrefying animalcuae retained in its meshes. 

J. B. Rumford, who has lived on Kern Island for several years, states 
that during the first years of their residence there, himself and family suf- 
fered with malarial disease, but since having learned how to manage they 
are exempt from it. He attributes much of the sickness in that section to the 
use of surface water. 

Timber culture, where practicable, possesses all the advantages for the 
San Joaquin that it has for the nortbarn division of the great valley, and 
forests, judiciously planted with reference to that object, are apparently the 
only remedy which can be devised against the disagreeable sandstorms 

*Eecently a compauj^ has been formed cousistiug of Charles Crocker, Esq., Colonel 
Fred. Crocker and C. H. Huffman, Esq., of Merced, entitled the Merced Irrigating Canal 
Company, to utilize the waters of the Merced river; and a canal of ample capacity is now 
in course of construction, from, which lateral branches are to be run to cover a large area of 
the lands of that county; and as soon as the improvement has sufficiently advanced, those 
gentlemen propose to divide up and offer for sale large tracts of their holding, something 
after the plan of ths Fresno County colonies. The vigor with which the work is being 
posecuted and the abundant means of the company, give assurance that this much needed 
improvement so long delayed in that county will now soon be accomplished. 



23 

wliich sometimes prevail in parts of the upper valley; and wood-growing 
would certainly prove directly remunerative there under favorable circum- 
stances. 

Dr. W. J. Prather, of Fresno City, has on his farm, a few miles south of 
that place, a tract of eleven acres, five years set out in black locust and 
Lombardy poplar, which have made a very good growth, this being the 
largest cultivated woodland I learned of in that county. 

The eucalyptus, in the Upper San Joaquin Valley, has in some places 
made a fair growth, whilst in other localities its cultivation has been unsuc- 
cessful. This is owing to the peculiarities of soil and to the greater degree 
of exposure to frosts in some situations than in others, and in part, prob- 
ably, to the difference in cultivation and management; but the experiments 
which have been made are enough to show that the species which have been 
planted there are not well adapted to that interior climate. 

The eucalyptus, first introduced into California by Colonel Warren, 
from suggestions of Baron VonMueller, has already proved a valuable acqui- 
sition for timber culture, where there has been a proper adaptability of the 
species planted to the soils and situations. According to VonMueller there 
are one hundred and twenty species of eucalyptus, and they form the prin- 
cipal timber growth over the greater part of the Australian continent. Some 
of the species attain only the dimensions of shi'ubbery, and among them are 
beautiful flowering shrubs, well adapted to ornamental grounds; and from 
these diminutive species there are gradations in size, up to species which 
produce gigantic forest trees, which rival in height the sequoias of Califor- 
nia. And these numerous species furnish timber of different characteristics 
and qualities and adapted to a variety of purposes; and among the products 
of the native eucalyptus forests are potash, oils, tars, acids, dyes and tans. 
The different species grow in a great variety of soils, situations and climates, 
some kinds thriving in the interior arid districts, where the heat is greater 
than in any part of this State; other species, including those which have 
been most cultivated in California, are found near the sea coast, and other 
vai'ieties again cover the msuntains at different degrees of altitude, up to 
the regions of snow and sharp frosts, and with a better knowledge of euca- 
lyptography species of that genus could probably be selected which would be 
adapted to any desired locality within the State, 

The railroad companies, by planting eucalyptus along the lines of their 
roads, have excellent opportunities of acquiring information regarding the 
adaptability of the various species. The article by R. C. E. Stearns, Ph. D., 
hereinbefore quoted, contains a statement by J, R. Scupham, Esq., of the 
Central Pacific, from which I take the following: The company have planted 
of several varieties of eucalyptus hundreds and thousands of ti-ees along the 
right of way and in plantations. About San Francisco Bay all sjjecies flour- 
ish, if cultivated when young, but most growth is made by E. Globulus, E. 
Gornuta and E. Gigantea. In the interior valleys these species will not 
flourish — are not sure even to live save in exceptional j)laces; while the E. 
Rostra fa and E. Viminalis seem to do well and bear the frost. A rich soil 
compensates E. Globulus for some frost, as is evinced by its flourishing at 
Delano and atChico. In a plantation of one hundred and twenty thousand 
trees at Tipton, Tulare County, well-cared for, nearly all the trees of the 
first-named group died after struggling along for two years, while the E. Boa- 



24 

trata and the like thrive, though growing slowly. The eucalyptus now be- 
ing set out are selected with proper regard to local climate, soil and situa- 
tion, as well as to the quality of their wood. 

It is well known that forests purify the atmosphere of miasmata, but 
the eucalyptus possesses this useful function in a great degree. Professor 
Cichi, of Santa Clara College, is authority, in an article heretofore published, 
that Pope Pius, in 1868, gave to an association of Trappist Monks a tract of 
land near Rome, which was so excessively malarious as to be uninhabitable, 
on condition that they should improve its salubrit}'. The air was so bad that 
during the first four years the monks could not sleep on the place, but re- 
tired every evening within the walls of Rome to avoid the nocturnal emana- 
tions; yet, despite these precautions, twelve of their number died from ma- 
laria. But principally tlirough the planting of large numbers of gum tree.s, 
the air became so changed that they were able to take up their permanent 
abode at their abbey, on the land. Subsequently, a law was enacted to ex- 
pel certain religious orders, including this association of monks, from the 
country, but the Government remitted the sentence in their behalf on condi- 
tion that they should set out one hundred thousand gum trees on malarious 
land in their neighborhood within the following ten years. 

Planting with eucalyptus has been attended with great success in reclaim- 
ing malarious districts in Algeria, and attention is being directed to it as a 
means of reclaiming malarious provinces in Italy and in other parts of 
Southern Europe. 

Eucalyptus timber is used largely in ship building in Australia and 
Tasmania, and being torredo-proof, is very desirable for piling where im- 
mersed in salt water, and for other submarine purposes. 

There are several stretches of seacoastin this State where the methods 
of Bremontier might be applied with great advantage, and if the Golden 
Gate Park Commissioners had funds furnished to enable them to raise a 
continuous sand ridge of a hundred feet in height a few rods back of and 
extending i)arallel with the beach from the Cliff House to the outlet of Lake 
Merced, and fix it in its place with trees, shrubs and grasses which would 
thrive in that situation, a sheltered park of alternate forest and lawn, with 
shrub and flower-bordered lakelets^ might be created to the leeward of it, 
such as would be the delight and pride of themselves and their fellow 
citizens; and if not permitted to continue until the maturity of the improve- 
ments, they might take pleasure in contemplating the benefits which would 
accrue to the citizens who will arise to follow in their footsteps and occupy 
their places. 

The "Elements of Forestry," by Franklin B. Hough, Ph. D., Chief of 
the Forestry Division of the United States Department of Agriculture, is a 
book of 380 pages, and contains a great deal of general information on the 
subject of forestry, as well as practical instruction for the planting and care 
of forest trees for ornament and profit. This is a very useful work and 
should be in the hands of every one who is in any manner interested in 
forestry. A. L. Bancroft & Co., will order the book on application, or it 
will be sent through the mail, jDOst paid, on receipt of two dollars, by the 
publishers, Robert Clark & Co., Cincinnati, Ohio, 



25 

" Forest Trees of California," by A. Kellogg, M, D., describes our 
native trees. 

"Eucalyptus and Forest Trees," by Elwood Cooper, Esq., gives the 
most complete account of the eucalyptus of any American work. 

The A?fierican Journal of Forestry, edited by the author of the " Ele- 
ments of Forestry," is published monthly by Robert Clark & Co., Cinciu- 
natti. Price, |3 per annum. 

There is no State in the American Union in which as great natural 
agricultural resources are to the same extent dependent on the conservation 
of the timber growth, and none in which forest culture would produce as 
important results, in which there is as much backwardness in that direction 
as in this State of California. The reasons for this state of things must be 
apparent to those who have given attention to the subject, and it will not 
be profitable to occupy space here in discussing them. The thing to be 
done by those who are already interested is to devise the best means of en- 
lightening the people as to its utility and importance. 

The few public spirited gentlemen who have hitherto been engaged in 
disseminating information pertaining to forestry are entitled to the respect 
and gratitude of their fellow citizens for their laudable efforts, bu, indi- 
vidual effort is not equal to the task of doing what is necessary to be done in 
this field for the preservation and development of the best interests of the 
State, and the old adage, " In union there is strength," was never more 
applicable than in matters of this kind ; and I believe that those philan- 
thropically disposed would be able to render each other mutual aid and to 
accomplish much more by coming together and forming a State Forestry 
Association after the example of Minnesota and Ohio. 

I will close this report with sentiments and language contained in a 
letter received at the formation of the Ohio State Forestry Association, from 
that well known statesman and philanthropist, Hon. Cassius M. Clay of 
Kentucky. After referring to the thoughtless wastefulness of the American 
people in the destruction of our native forests, and the results now being 
experienced from the excessive denudation, Mr. Clay writes as follows; 

"What we want now is to arouse public notice to the facts, and to 
create societies in the several States to act under the patronage and aid of 
the States, and all concentrating their experience in the National Bureau of 
Forestry, which can unite with foreign societies and governments and make 
all knowledge on this subject of world-wide usefulness. For it is not too 
much to say that nations have owed their rise and fall to these laws of tree 
growth and rainfall, and that our nation cannot live and ignore them." 



26 



PERSONAL EXPLANATION. 



By permission, M. M. Chipmau, M. D., read the following personal 

explanation to the State Medical Society, at its annual meeting- in April, 

1883, and which was then, by a vote of the Society, directed to be printed 

in the volume of Transactions: 
f 

Mr. Pkesidext and Members of the Medical Society of the State of 
California: I wish, as a personal privilege, to say a few words in regard to 
the Report which I made to this Society at its annual meeting for the 
year 1881. . 

Whilst traveling about the upj)er Sacramento Valley in the Fall of 1880, 
for the purpose of acquiring information regarding the topography and 
meteorology of that section, being frequently confronted with the deposits^ 
I became interested in the debris question. I found Air. James McCona- 
haney, telegraph operator at Mary ville, to be very intelligent on the subject, 
and he was kind enough to act as my guide in examining into some of the 
great changes which had been effected by the filling in of the deposits, in 
the relative condition of the river channels, streets, pioperty, etc., at that 
city; and then on iny invitation and at my expense, the gentleman accom- 
panied me to the Smartsville mines, and to him I said that as soon as I could 
arrange in San Francisco to be absent for a while, I should return to that part 
of the country and give the subject an extended and thorough investigation; 
and that was all the understanding I arrived at, or pre arrangement I made 
with any party or parties in the Sacramento Valley. In this city, I said to 
the late A. C. Peachy that I was going up the Sacramento Vallej^ to study up 
the debris question, to make a report upon it; but he, knowing something of 
the extent of the subject, was incredulous as to my being able to accomplish 
what I proposed doing, and exclaimed: " Aly God! you can't do it!" But I 
assured him that I thought I could unless my health failed me; and that was 
the full extent of the connection which any other party than myself had 
with the matter in this place. In fact, I was quite reticent of my intentions 
regarding it, as I was apprehensive that my health might give out, and I 
should in consequence fail of accomplishing my purpose. 

Of men of character and intelligence in the Sacramento Valley I re- 
quested information of extent of deposits, damages, etc., as aftecting their 
own immediate localities and neighborhoods, but cautioned each one to be 
sure to make no statements but what will bear rigid investigation, for I had 
rather make an under estimate than to set down anything in excess of facts; 
and I made personal examinations as far as my time would permit, and in any 
case where I had doubts as to information received, I obtained other evi- 
dence, and continued to follow the matter up until I became satisfied that 
I had ascertained the facts. Throughout the whole affair I was acting in 



27 

the fear of no man, nor in the expectation of reward or favor from any man, 
or any party or any class or set of men whatever, and the investigation was 
wholly of my own conception, and was entered into without the advice of 
or even consultation with any person, and was carried through altogether 
on my own responsibility, and was altogether of my own doing, without the 
aid or assistance of any party or parties, except in the matter of informa- 
tion furnished, in accordance with the statements of the Report itself. 

As to my personal expenses of steamboat fares for seif and team, and 
railroad fares, and hotel and livery bills and other outlays, I was everywhere 
charged full price, and I will assure the Society that I made no claims of ' 
rebate therefrom; and those expenses as well as the subsequent expense of 
publishing three thousand copies of the Report in pamphlet form, and dis- 
tributing through the mails, were all borne by myself. 

G. G. Briggs, the viticulturist, after receiving a copy of the Report, 
sent me his check for twenty-five dollars, as a contribution towards reim- 
bursement of my expenses. I re enclosed the check in a letter in which I 
thanked 'Mv. Briggs for his kind intentions, but stated that I had commenced 
with the expectation of doing everything at my own expense, and that T 
could then swear that I had not received one dollar for that effort, and as I 
preferred to occupy that position, I thei'efore could not accept the twenty- 
five dollars. 

The reason of my making this statement is, that a talented and promi- 
nent member of this Society testified, on a certain occasion, in a language 
which exhibited that he was of the opinion that my Report on the debris 
question had been gotten up in collusion with other parties, and for another 
purpose than that which is set forth in the Report, and with the assistance, 
and even the personal help of another party, or of other parties; and 
although the gentleman may have changed his mind in reference to the 
matter since that time, yet as I have never learned of his having j)ublicly or 
otherwise so stated, and as it would neither be honorable in the individual, 
or respectful as toward this Society, to take advantage of a position con- 
ferred by the Society, to make out a Report jDrofessing to be intended for 
the pub-ic benefit, when in fact it was only for the benefit of the individual 
himself, or of a certain limited class with whom the iudividual was in collu- 
sion and interested, I have therefore taken the liberty of making this state- 
ment in correction of any mistaken impressions which might have been en- 
tertained in relation thereto. 

The life of an individual lasts onl}^ a generation, but ;i State is supposed 
to continue for several generations, and we may hope that this State Avill be 
in existence and prospering, a thousand years hence, and the people of the 
future are just as much interested in the lands of the State as are those of 
the present generation; and when I saw the great amount of destruction 
which was being perpetrated, I concluded that they were sadly in need 
of a representative, and in lack of abler or more influential representation, I 
even assumed to do what I could in the premises myself, and I presumed 
that a reliable and truthful representation of the facts would have an in- 
fluence in bringing about proper and equitable measures of relief; and as 
my labor was performed more in behalf of the future than of the present, I 
was quite well satisfied to trust my compensation entirely with the future. 
And that was the basis of my calculation and of my action. 



28 



The preceding Keport, and the explanation regarding my Report to the 
State Medical Society, for 1881, were republished from the volume of Trans- 
actions of the Society, in pamphlet form, for more general distribution, in 

October, 1883. 

M. M. Chipman, M.D. 






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